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Tear Those Waves Apart!

Well the deadline has arrived and I’ve submitted Legends of the Swell! You can download and play the current build for Windows and Mac OS X.

As with most of my jam endeavors, I plan to carry on working on this until it both looks and feels a lot better. This game seems to be another step in the right direction of me actually making fun games (y’know, the one thing they should probably be). Maybe it’s having clocked up hundreds of hours of gameplay, but wave ramping, jumping, spinning, and dodging jet skis feels good!

That being said, a competition submission would be nothing without it’s share of bugs and broken mechanics. There’s still a lot to do to make the movement feel right. At the moment, the result of ramping off the crest of a wave is entirely unpredictable. Sometimes you slip over it anticlimactically and lose the wave, other times you rocket into a wild looping spin. Incidentally, this looks pretty awesome but it doesn’t feel intended, which takes some control away from the player.

I also need to modify the wave movement logic. There are still situations where waves magically collapse, sometimes followed by a sneaky tidal wave. I also want to see if I can add a breaking/barrel shape to the wave.

Any and all feedback is appreciated! If any real surfers want to lynch me for brutalizing the realism of the sport, feel free to do so. But while you are, let me know what the game needs to feel more like surfing 😀